What Can I Do

When I was a teenager I thought that everything depended on me and on what I could do, if I was good enough or worthy enough. That’s a lot of pressure for anyone to face. I thought that if I didn’t do good enough I would just be worthless. I was wrong, I just didn’t know it then.

Since then I have learned the secret of living a fulfilling and fruitful life. Today I want to walk you through another person who learned the same lessons, I know how he felt and what he learned because it is my story too. His story is more dramatic than mine and makes a better story so we will use his, but we had the same problem and found the same solution, let’s finish Gideon’s story.

Remember that Gideon had been though the encounter with the angel who told him to go in his strength and free his people from Midian. Gideon had responded that he was not a general, his tribe was not an important tribe, his father was not an important man is his tribe, and he was the least important of his fathers children. Who was he to free his people. Not only that but there were a lot of Midianites.

Judges 7:12 NASB95

Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

As numerous as the sand on the seashore. Now I don’t think God meant that literally but just to put it in context the mathematicians say that there are approximately 56,699,091 grains of sand in a five gallon bucket. So there is a lot of sand on the beach. That’s a lot of Midianites. But after a few confidence boosters and some wet fleece Gideon is ready to go.

Judges 7:1–8 NASB95

Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him, rose early and camped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’ “Now therefore come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.’ ” So 22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink.” Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men; but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. The Lord said to Gideon, “I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home.” So the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

32,000 people show up to join Gideon’s army. Now I don’t know exactly how many were on the other side but even with 32,000 Gideon would be outnumbered. God was not worried about having enough men. In fact God told Gideon to send home anyone who was afraid and over 2/3 of the army went home. Now only 10,000 men are left to face this mighty army that had oppressed them for seven years. God said that was too many. So God told Gideon to send the men down to get a drink and watch what they did. Everyone who put his head down to the water was sent away and only the ones who kept there head up and brought water up with their hand were left.

How big was Gideon’s army now...... it was 300 men. The Midianites had chariots and camels and archers and horsemen and all kinds of armor and equipment and God told Gideon I will deliver you with 300 men who are not solders and have not been raised to war, men who are not as well equipped or trained as their enemy, men who seriously outnumbered and terribly outgunned.

By the way do you know what equipment was given to the soldiers of Gideon who were supposed to face this larger, better trained, better equipped army, what kind of armor and weapons were the Israelites told to take. Each man was to take a trumpet and a clay pot with a torch in it.

That very night God sent Gideon to battle. It was not like the movie made about the Spartans who defended a narrow pass against thousands of enemy soldiers. There were only 300 Spartans but they were the best trained and equipped soldiers in the world, they faced off against thousands of enemy soldiers but they did it by blocking a narrow pass where only 50 or so could fight at one time. The Spartans rotated fresh troops into this 50 man front line all day long and held back the whole Persian army with a few well trained men due to tactics and the narrow pass where only a few could fight at a time.

This is not that story. Gideon was not to use the terrain to his advantage or pull off some bit of tactical genius. Gideon was to divide his three hundred men into three groups and surround this huge army. Even if they had stood on hills around the outside of the camp I am not sure Gideon’s men could have seen each other surrounding this huge army, especially since they did it in the dark. By what tactic or fighting ability were these men to prevail against such a vastly superior army. Let’s see:

Judges 7:16–18 NASB95

He divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put trumpets and empty pitchers into the hands of all of them, with torches inside the pitchers. He said to them, “Look at me and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. “When I and all who are with me blow the trumpet, then you also blow the trumpets all around the camp and say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’ ”

Three hundred men surround thousands and attack by the blowing trumpets and waving torches in the air. Then they just sat back and watched this huge, highly trained army, this army that had rolled over everything that got in its way for the last 7 years, they just watched this army roll over itself. God caused confusion in the army and the different units began to attack and kill each other. An army that had traveled together for 7 years now destroyed itself because that was the way God wanted it.

Did Gideon need to be a great general, no he did not. Did his men need to be great soldiers, not in the least. They were not trained enough, not equipped enough, not educated enough, their general was not old enough, or respected enough, or experienced enough, but none of that mattered even the tiniest little bit. God took care of it.

In fact the army destroyed itself so well that Gideon had to call in help to chase down and kill all the ones who were fleeing in panic. The hardest task they had was catching up to the ones who were running away.

The task Gideon was given was not just difficult it was impossible. The odds against him were so huge that he had no chance at all. There was absolutely nothing that Gideon could have done to even make it a good fight and he could not even have dreamed of winning, but he did win, and he won easily.

What did Gideon learn. He was still young, he was still from a lesser tribe. He father was still the least in the tribe and he was still his fathers youngest son. None of those circumstances changed. Gideon didn’t have a chance. And apparently that is exactly where God likes to work. God set it up that way. God chose an inexperienced general, God sent most of the army home, God set everything up so that Gideon had absolutely no chance at all, and then God made it happen.

Apparently God likes for his people to see him work. He likes to perform miracles from time to time. He wants us to count on him and not on our own abilities. God wants us to follow him........especially when we can’t do it under our own power.

It bothers me when someone says I can’t. It makes me feel bad when someone says there is nothing we can do. It means I have failed. When I hear someone in the congregation, even if its me, say that there is nothing we can do I realize that not done my job well. No it is not my job to give you the skills to overcome any obstacle, it is not my job to equip you to do anything you want to do. It is my job to teach you the word of God and to help you understand the character of God. It’s a big job.......and I know that I can’t do it, at least not by myself. Of course this job, the one I can’t do, is the one God gave me to do, so I know it can be done, I have read the story of Gideon.

I know that I can teach you something I don’t fully understand myself because God told me to do it. Since God told me to do it I am pretty sure I know two things. The first thing I know is that it can be done, If God wants it to be done God can make it happen. Since I have read the story of Gideon I know something else. I am totally and completely inadequate to the task. I am not smart enough, or educated enough, or a good enough teacher, I don’t have the skills or the knowledge. I can’t do it, at least not until God shows up.

When someone asks what can we do, or states that we are too small or too poor or too whatever I know that my job is not yet done. I have not yet been able to communicate that with God all things are possible. I know they have probably heard it, I know that they would probably say they believe it but it just hasn’t yet sunk into their lives to the extent that they believe it enough to act on it. When we finally get there, and I know it can be done because it part of the job God has given me, when we finally get to the point where we believe that God really can do anything and we start doing it with him we will finally have learned the lesson of Gideon.

If God has given you a ministry, a task, a command, if God has told you to do anything, no matter how improbable or how impossible, you can do it. You should do it. You need to do it. Especially if it cannot possibly be done, after all, that is where God likes to work, that is what he likes best.

Nothing is impossible for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So what is he calling you to do. Can you do it. If you can, if you can handle it without help, if you have all the skills and resources you need it may very well not be what God is calling you to do. If you can handle it God does not need to. If you can do it you don’t need God’s help. If you can do it by yourself God can stay out of it, and he doesn’t want to, he wants you to work beside him and rely on him, he wants you to need him. God wants you to do the impossible. Not because God somehow needs the impossible done, to God the impossible is just another day at the office. God wants you to do the impossible so that you need his help, so that you need him, so that the two of you work together and grow closer together. He could do it without you, but he doesn’t want to.